According to the Constitution “no person may be subjected to arbitrary arrest, and no person may be detained without a charge or conviction against him” (Proclamation No. 1/1995, 21 August 1995, Article 17). However, the USDOS notes that state of emergency regulations in
85 2018 “allowed law enforcement officers to arrest and detain individuals without a court warrant and hold detainees for longer than prescribed under normal, non-SOE legal precedents”. The report mentions hundreds of arbitrary arrests and detentions related to the state of emergency (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1d). Freedom House notes “some positive developments in 2018”, however, “arbitrary arrest and detention remains common”. The organisation further reports that the “right to a fair trial is often not respected, particularly for opponents of the government charged under the antiterrorism law” (Freedom House, 4 February 2019, section F2).
In September 2018 nearly 3,000 youths were arrested in Addis Ababa. Of these, 1,200 were detained for their alleged participation in protests and sent to Tolay military camp for rehabilitation. On 18 October 2018 they were released (Freedom House, 4 February 2019, section F2; The Economist, 3 November 2018; AI, 24 September 2018; BBC News, 25 September 2018).
The USDOS’ human rights report covering the year 2018 gives the following account on detention procedures in Ethiopia:
“The constitution and law require detainees to appear before the court and face charges within 48 hours of arrest or as soon thereafter as local circumstances and communications permit. Travel time to the court is not included in this 48-hour period. With a warrant authorities may detain persons suspected of serious offenses for 14 days without charge and for additional and renewable 14-day periods during a pending investigation. The courts allowed security officials to continue investigations for more than 14 days without bringing formal charges against suspects.
Under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation (ATP), police may request to detain persons without charge for 28-day periods, up to a maximum of four months, during an investigation. The law permits warrantless arrests for various offenses including ‘flagrant offenses.’ These include suspects apprehended while committing an offense, attempting to commit an offense, or having just completed an offense.
The law prohibits detention in any facility other than an official detention center; however, local militias and other formal and informal law enforcement entities operated an unknown number of unofficial detention centers.
A functioning bail system was in place. Bail was not available for persons charged with terrorism, murder, treason, and corruption. In other cases the courts set bail between 500 and 10,000 birr ($18 and $357), which most citizens could not afford. The government provided public defenders for detainees unable to afford private legal counsel, but defendants received these services only when their cases went to court and not during the critical pretrial phases. In some cases a single defense counsel represented multiple defendants in a single case. There were reports that while some detainees were in pretrial detention, authorities allowed them little or no contact with legal counsel, did not provide full information on their health status, and did not allow family visits. There were reports
officials sequestered prisoners for weeks at a time and placed civilians under house arrest for undisclosed periods.
The constitution requires authorities under an SOE to announce the names of detainees within one month of their arrest. Authorities generally published the names of those detained under the SOE but not always within the 30-day period. Civilians were not always able to locate the rosters of names of those imprisoned.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1d)
Regarding arbitrary arrests and pretrial detention the USDOS notes:
“Authorities regularly detained persons arbitrarily, including protesters, journalists, and opposition party members. There were hundreds of reports of arbitrary arrest by security forces. […]
Some detainees reported indefinite detention for several years without charge or trial. The percentage of the inmate population in pretrial detention and average length of time held was not available. Lengthy legal procedures, large numbers of detainees, judicial inefficiency, and staffing shortages contributed to frequent trial delays, in some cases years. SOE regulations allowed authorities to detain a person without a court order until the end of the SOE. At the conclusion of the SOE, several hundred individuals remained remanded and awaiting trial.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1d)
Regarding the ability of detainees to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court the report elaborates:
“The law requires officials to inform detainees of the nature of their arrest within a specific period time, which varies based on the severity of the allegation. It also provides persons accused of or charged with a crime the ability to appeal. During the year no cases were brought to the courts by individuals claiming unlawful detention. There were reports of hundreds of arbitrary arrests and detentions related to the SOE. The criminal law does not provide compensation for unlawfully detained persons.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1d)
The USDOS mentions reports of “general mistreatment of detainees at official detention centers, unofficial detention centers, police stations, and in Kilinto federal prison”. Regarding the treatment of detainees, the report further notes:
“Interrogators administered beatings and electric shocks to extract information and confessions from detainees. Police investigators used physical and psychological abuse to extract confessions.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1c)
In January 2018 Ethiopia announced plans to close the Maekelawi detention facility in Addis Ababa (Al Jazeera, 3 January 2018). On April 2018 the government closed the detention center, described as “site of many reports of prisoner abuse in past years” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1c) and “one of the country's most notorious police stations” (Al Jazeera, 3 January 2018). HRW also mentions the closure of the Maekelawi detention center and further notes:
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“After media reported significant complaints of abuse from prisoners in other federal detention centers, the federal Attorney General’s Office dismissed administrators of five facilities in July [2018] but they did not face criminal charges. Many detention centers run by regional administrations, some well-known for ill-treatment, rape, torture, and lack of access to medical and legal aid, remain unaffected by the reform efforts. In July, the federal attorney general told media that there would be investigations into torture and mistreatment in detention facilities. In November, a number of high-ranking security officials were arrested due to their alleged involvement in human rights abuses in detention, according to the attorney general. They had not yet been charged at time of writing.” (HRW, 17 January 2019)
In November 2018 “Ethiopia has arrested 63 intelligence officials, military personnel and businesspeople on allegations of rights violations and corruption”, some of the arrested “are suspected of abuses of prisoners” (VOA, 12 November 2018). Addis Standard also mentions the arrests and reports on information on the alleged rights violations given at a press briefing by Attorney General Berhanu Tsegaye:
“Narrowing down the allegations into the practice of torture, the attorney general pointed out that its investigations have uncovered that the practice was not only limited to prison cells, but also seven illegal private detention facilities found in the capital Addis Abeba alone. The AG’s [attorney general’s] allegations are familiar tales for Ethiopians which were out in the open especially following the mass release in February this year of thousands of prisoners of conscience. What came as a chilling experience for many, however, was to hear the AG admit publicly what every Ethiopian knows inside out. He went on describing torture methods, including but not limited to, removing fingernails, inserting pen on suspects’ noses, leaving suspects overnight tied to trees and naked, electric shock, hanging bottles of water on male genitals, gang raping women and sodomizing male suspects, using pliers to pull male genitals, and waterboarding. Main suspects of these chilling allegations are mostly drawn from the country’s top spy agency, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS – both for federal and regional states), and prison police. […] The number of suspects in this category as of yet stands at 37. But the AG implied this number could grow once those on the run and those who have fled the country are apprehended.” (Addis Standard, 16 November 2018)
In May 2019 FBC reports that “about 26 former officials and employees of the National Intelligence and Security Services […] have been charged with gross human rights violations”.
The charged “are suspected of gross human rights violations such as torture, forced confessions, sodomy, rape, electrocution, and arbitrary detention of people including in secret facilities”. (FBC, 7 May 2019)
The USDOS’ human rights report covering the year 2018 gives a detailed account on the detention conditions in Ethiopia. Regarding the situation under the state of emergency the report notes the following:
“During the SOE the government operated detention centers in six zones - Addis Ababa, Hawassa, Dire Dawa, Nekemte, Bahir Dar, and Semera. In March the State of Emergency
Inquiry Board announced the SOE Command Post detained 1,107 individuals in the six zones. The main reasons given by the government for these arrests included murder, destruction of public service utilities, road blockade, demolishing of public documents, trafficking illegal firearms, and inciting activities that cause ethnic conflicts. Although conditions varied, problems of gross overcrowding and inadequate food, water, sanitation, and medical care were common at sites holding SOE detainees.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1c)
Regarding physical conditions in detention the report further notes:
“Severe overcrowding was common, especially in prison sleeping quarters. For example, in 2016 the EHRC visited a prison cell in Shoa Robit Federal Prison and found that its two small windows did not allow enough light into the estimated 40-square-meter (430-square-foot) cell, which was extremely small to house 38 inmates. Authorities sometimes incarcerated juveniles with adults. Prison officials generally separated male and female prisoners, although mixing occurred at some facilities. Medical attention following physical abuse was insufficient in some cases.
The government budgeted approximately nine birr ($0.32) per prisoner per day for food, water, and health care, although this amount varied across the country. According to the World Bank, the country’s per capita GDP was $1.50 per day. Many prisoners supplemented this support with daily food deliveries from family members or by purchasing food from local vendors. Reports noted officials prevented some prisoners from receiving food from their families, and some families did not know of their relatives’
locations. Medical care was unreliable in federal prisons and almost nonexistent in regional ones. Prisoners had only limited access to potable water. Water shortages caused unhygienic conditions, and most prisons lacked appropriate sanitary facilities. Many prisoners had serious health problems but received little or no treatment. There were reports prison officials denied some prisoners access to needed medical care.
Visitors to political prisoners and other sources reported political prisoners often faced significantly different treatment compared with other prisoners. Allegations included lack of access to proper medication or medical treatment, lack of access to books or television, and denial of exercise time.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1c)
Regarding the administration of prisons, the USDOS describes:
“In July [2018] the government fired five federal prison officials following state media reports of allegations of abuse. There were reports that prisoners mistreated by prison guards did not have access to prison administrators or ombudspersons to register their complaints. Legal aid clinics operated in some prisons. At the regional level, these clinics had good working relations with judicial, prison, and other government officials. Prison officials allowed some detainees to submit complaints to judicial authorities without censorship, but courts sometimes declined to hear such complaints.
The law generally provides visitor access for prisoners. Authorities, however, denied some indicted defendants visits with their lawyers or with representatives of their political
89 parties. In some cases police did not allow pretrial detainees access to visitors, including
family members and legal counsel. Prison regulations stipulate that lawyers representing persons charged with terrorism offenses may visit only one client per day, and only on Wednesdays and Fridays. Authorities denied family members’ access to persons charged with terrorist activity.
Officials permitted religious observance by prisoners, but this varied by prison and even by section within a prison. There were allegations authorities denied detainees adequate locations in which to pray.” (USDOS, 13 March 2019, section 1c)
In February 2019 charges were filed on eight former prison officials at Qilinto federal maximum security prison located south of Addis Abeba. The prison officials are accused of firing on inmates following the outbreak of a fire in the prison in September 2016. Addis Standard cites a guard on duty, who claims “the victims died as a result of indiscriminate shooting by prison security guards of duty” (Addis Standard, 19 February 2019).
Reports by Human Rights Watch released in July 2018 and October 2013 detail human rights abuses in Jail Ogaden, in Somali regional state, and in Maekelawi Police Station, in Addis Ababa:
HRW – Human Rights Watch: “We are Like the Dead”; Torture and other Human Rights Abuses in Jail Ogaden, Somali Regional State, Ethiopia, July 2018
https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/1437376/1476_1530828139_ethiopia0718-web.pdf
HRW– Human Rights Watch: "They Want a Confession" Torture and Ill-Treatment in Ethiopia’s Maekelawi Police Station, 17 October 2013
https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/10/17/they-want-confession/torture-and-ill-treatment-ethiopias-maekelawi-police-station